


walking the wire

by fnowae



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, damn I'm posting again, not much to tag but I promise it's good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 12:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11577789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fnowae/pseuds/fnowae
Summary: Joe likes to think he's good at planning ahead.





	walking the wire

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting again. I don't know how I keep managing this. Three fics in two days! It's a miracle!
> 
> This ship is fucking underrated. I had to write for it. 
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

Joe likes to think he's good at planning ahead. 

Does he always follow through with his plans? No, not exactly. But he still makes them, and still manages to at least end up somewhere close to his original goal. And sometimes things he never planned for - like the band, for instance - end up being better than his original plan. So the plan adjusts and he keeps going. In this way, it's less of a set plan and more of a vague idea of what to do next. 

Joe is also good at planning ahead in that he spends lots of time theorizing about every possible situation that could occur and stretches out his concepts into the foreseeable future until he has a web of possible choices he could make and choices stemming off those choices and more and more until he's sure he'd have an idea what to do in any possible situation, because he's planned for everything. 

But, out of all those hours of careful thought and preparation for anything, he hasn't planned for this. 

He hasn't planned for Pete pulling him briefly aside with a hushed "Can we talk?" after a show and he hasn't planned for Pete to take him around the corner and say "I love you" like he meant it and shit and he hadn't planned for them to end up making out in the back hall of a hot venue, dropping with post-show sweat and adrenaline, and yet, it's happening. 

Joe digs through his mind for anything, any way he could have possibly planned for this. He must have considered this, right? But no, no, how could he? When thinking of all the logical events that could possibly happen, "Pete confesses his love for me and we make out" just wasn't anywhere on the list. 

Which is why - really, it's only because he has no plan to fall back on - he steps back, panicking as his heart thumps in his chest with most than just excitement from the show and he stammers out, "I - I gotta go!" and ignores the way Pete's face falls as he stumbles back and runs off through the first hallway he sees. 

It's just a known fact that out of anyone in the band, Patrick is the guy you talk to. He's not necessarily the one who gives the best advice, or even the easiest to talk to, he's just the one that will take whatever you say to him and shake his head in disappointment, then tell you you're an idiot. 

Joe really needs someone to tell him he's an idiot. 

He stumbles through the maze of back hallways - they've never played this venue before, he doesn't know it - and hopes that he gets to Patrick before Pete does. Because Patrick is just the guy you talk to, and he doesn't doubt that Pete needs someone to talk to as much as Joe does right now. 

He finds Patrick right about where he'd left him (Before, he thinks, Before with a capital B, Before this whole mess and Before the plan failed and Before everything in the world went off-kilter). Patrick's face falls to concern the second he sees Joe's expression. 

"What did you do?" he asks, which is a perfectly logical response any time Joe comes to him for help. 

"Uh," Joe starts, suddenly nervous about explaining. He wonders if he shouldn't, because maybe suddenly Patrick will stop being the guy you talk to, maybe he shouldn't for Pete's sake, maybe-

"Joe? What happened?" The concern on Patrick's face deepens, and hell, Joe has to get this out to someone, and if not to the guy you talk to, then who?

"Well, I," he begins, unsure how to word this without coming off like a total idiot, though he knows he is, "well, first of all, Pete sort of...uh, told me he loved me?"

Patrick is not the least bit surprised. He just sighs heavily and asks, "What did you do, Joe?"

"Uh, well, see, then he sort of made out with me?" Joe stammers out, making it a question just so he doesn't actually have to say that it really happened. "And, well, I sort of freaked out and ran."

Predictably, Patrick shakes his head and mutters, "You're a fucking idiot."

"Thank you," Joe says courteously, "I needed that."

Patrick purses his lips, looking unsure how to go on - Patrick is, of course, not actually that good at giving real advice, only disappointed head shakes and telling people they're idiots - but he finally says, "Alright, so why?"

"Excuse me?" Joe asks, as that "why" could refer to pretty much anything that has taken place in the past couple minutes. 

"Why did you run?" Patrick repeats, raising an eyebrow almost accusatorially. "And don't just tell me you freaked out."

Joe stops to consider this. Other than just freaking out, he can't think of a decent reason as to why he had run. Finally, he settles for, "I think I was scared. No, don't ask me why. I'm getting to that." He takes a deep breath, because this next bit he hasn't even been ready to admit to himself yet, much less to someone else. "Well, I...I think I'm in love with him too. And I was scared because...because I thought nothing would ever come of it and I wasn't ready for that to happen. I like things to make sense. That...didn't."

"So you do like him," Patrick says, and Joe is kind of pissed that that's all he got out of that. He thinks it was a pretty meaningful monologue, if he does say so himself. 

"Can you just tell me I'm an idiot again so I can go find him and fix this?" Joe asks pleadingly. 

Patrick gives him an amused smile. "Sure. You're an idiot."

"Thank you," Joe says, and turns and runs off again, but this time towards his problems, not away from them. 

It takes him a little while to find Pete, mostly because at some point while he'd been talking to Patrick, Pete has ended up outside. The venue has a decorative water feature out front, a tiny manmade creek with a picturesque bridge over it, and Pete is sitting atop the bridge, his feet low enough to skim the surface of the water but not quite low enough to really get wet. 

He looks wrecked - and of course he does! He probably thinks Joe has just rejected him. But that's not what Joe meant. That's not it at all. 

Joe slowly makes his way towards the bridge. Pete is facing away from him, and doesn't hear his approaching footsteps. In fact, he doesn't even seem to notice when Joe sits down next to him on the damp wooden bridge. He only notices Joe's presence when Joe speaks up. 

"Hey."

Pete jumps a little and whips his head to face Joe. He looks panicked now. Joe's heart twists as Pete sputters out, "Fuck, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have - I didn't mean - well, I did, but I-"

"Calm down, Pete," Joe interjects, but Pete doesn't slow down in the least. 

"Of course you don't - of course you don't like me like that, I should've known, I'm an idiot, I-"

"Of course I-"

"And you're probably fucking straight, too, now that I think of it, which is more than a little bit of an issue, so I'm sorry about-"

"I am _not_ -"

"About that, it was a dumb mistake, and I know I shouldn't have, and-"

"Fucking hell, now I get why Patrick loves calling us idiots so much!"

This stops Pete in his tracks, mostly because Joe had yelled it so loudly it reverberates off the buildings around them. 

"Pete, look me in the eye," Joe says, amazed at his own calm. Pete does so, and Joe feels sick when he sees the fear still present in Pete's eyes. He continues, one word at a time for the emphasis, "I. Do. So. Like. You. Like. That."

Pete's eyes go wider, if that's even possible, and he stutters, "But you - you ran, and-"

"I ran because I was scared, Pete," Joe admits quietly. "Because I was presented with something I wanted, but had for so long deemed impossible to achieve, and actually achieving it...was just too much."

Pete blinks, and asks, voice shaky, "Are you really sure? Because, like, if you're lying out of pity to make me feel better, that's really kind of a shitty move, so-"

"Fucking hell, Pete, do I have to spell it out for you?" Joe asks, and, in the only way he can think to spell it out to Pete, he pulls Pete in and kisses him again. Unlike the fervent kissing of before, which was spurred by heat-of-the-moment decisions and a little bit of confusion, this kiss is slow and soft and spurred by nothing but truth. Joe whispers, soft as possible, into the kiss, "I love you too."

Pete pulls away first. "You...you really..."

"I do," Joe responds. "Pete, I do."

"Yeah." Pete's face spreads into a grin, and it doesn't take long for Joe to start smiling too. "Okay."

Joe figures that maybe - just maybe - this can fit into his plan, too.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments make me happy, send me headcanons for my fics or whatever you want at my Tumblr (vicesandvelociraptors), blah blah blah, thanks for reading


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